172 PRUNING AND MANAGEMENT OF THE PEACH TREE. 



VI. Disbudding, or Removal of Young Shoots. 



122. Disbudding is the suppression of all the useless or badly- 

 disposed shoots and laterals, with the intention of concentrating 

 the sap, of encouraging the growth of the young shoots retained, 

 and of keeping a sufficient space in which to nail them with regu- 

 larity and symmetry. Disbudding, to produce the best results, 

 should be divided into two distinct operations. The first takes 

 place as soon as all the buds of the Peach-tree become developed 

 into young shoots, so as to enable us to know the ones that are 

 unnecessary ; it is the operation subsequent to the winter-nailing. 

 The second takes place successively as vegetation proceeds, and 

 applies to the laterals as well as to the primitive young shoots. 



123. The first operation is a very good substitute for winter- 

 disbudding, which I do not recommend. It most commonly 

 takes place early or late in May, according as vegetation is more 

 or less forward; but always before the young shoots have acquired 

 too much strength. If we deferred too long, the suppression of 

 the young shoots would cause a great derangement in the circu- 

 lation of the sap. It is, therefore, very important to make the 

 first removal of young shoots whilst the latter are herbaceous, 

 and scarcely three-quarters of an inch long. It is performed on 

 the fruit-branches in the case mentioned at 121, and on shoots 

 of the former year which terminate the wood-branches recently 

 pruned. In fact, these shoots, the result of the former year's 

 pruning, will have formed a great number of triple eyes, more 

 especially on strong trees. These eyes, opening at the same time, 

 would produce young shoots, which, if retained, would consume 

 too great a quantity of sap. For this reason, the middle one, 

 which is always the strongest, must be invariably suppressed at 

 the time of its first starting into active growth, preserving only 

 the best-placed of the remaining two, in order that it, and others 

 managed in the same way, may, on their becoming fruit-branches, 

 regularly furnish the principal branches. With respect to double 

 shoots, the same procedure is adopted as in the two latter cases. 

 This first disbudding is of very great importance for ensuring the 

 beauty which a tree presents when its principal branches are 

 regularly furnished with bearing-shoots, and for the maintenance 

 of an equal growth throughout the tree. It may be performed by 

 the hand on the fruit-branches, and with the point of the pruning- 

 knife on the prolonging shoots of the wood-branches. 



124. It is always worse than useless to cause a waste of sap, 



